Bank interest signs have been formed from magnetic sheet materials into individual sign component pieces, each forming a numeric digit, that are attached to a metal support surface and adjacent to other similarly attached numeric pieces to form an interest rate number. The B. F. Goodrich Company developed these flexible magnetic sheet materials that can be directly printed upon, or that sometimes carry a pressure sensitive adhesive coating to which a transparent cover sheet is secured. Sign-forming indicia can be printed upon the front of this magnetic sheet material or the rear of the transparent cover sheet.
The bank interest signs, however, left much to be desired from the standpoint of sign attractiveness and flexibility. The only portions of these signs that received the changeable indicia-forming sign component pieces were the interest number sections thereof. The sign component pieces forming the interest number thereof projected from the general plane of the rest of the sign, which contained stationary unchangeable indicia identifying the investment security to which the interest rate number applied, and the position of the stationary indicia limited the positioning choices for the interest rate numerals. Also, because the edges of the individual sign component pieces projecting from the sign were readily visible and accessible, unwanted visitors to the bank commonly grasped the exposed edges of the sign component pieces and rearranged them to the great consternation of the owners of the bank and their regular customers.
A changeable display sign to which the most preferred form of the present invention is applicable comprises a magnet attracting support wall encompassing the area of the desired sign and having on either one or both sides thereof an initially exposed sign component-receiving surface to which individual sign component pieces can be secured preferably by magnetic attraction. The entire exposed area of this magnetic attracting wall surface, which is to contain sign-forming indicia, is covered with thin, flexible sign component pieces preferably having a backing made of the thin, flexible magnetic material. Some of these pieces supply only blank (i.e. preferably background supplying) spaces to the sign and others supply numeric or alphabet characters and the immediate background thereof. When all of the sign component pieces have been applied to the sign-forming support surface, the entire sign viewed from a short distance therefrom appears as a single sheet of material having one continuous printed front surface, even though, in reality, the front surface is made up of different types of individual sign component pieces. The framing of the sign preferably covers the exposed edges of the outermost sign component pieces of the design.
Since the confronting edges of the various sign component pieces are in immediate contiguous relationship, the margins of the individual sign component pieces are barely visible, even to one viewing the sign closely. The thin, flexible sign component pieces to which the invention relates, however, are individually removable, as by use of a suction cup, or by a thin blade removal tool which can be readily wedged between adjacent sign component pieces. To enable this tool to readily peel a corner portion of a sign component piece from the support wall surface, and more importantly, to enable the various pieces to be easily and neatly interfitted into the sign at any point or be removed and replaced thereat by another piece, two of the adjacent and corresponding marginal edges of each piece (i.e. the bottom and right sides) are identically undercut, as by beveling the same, and two of the other adjacent and corresponding edges of each piece (i.e. the left and top sides) are oppositely undercut or are overcut.
The beveling can be readily unexpectedly made with such beveled edges to close tolerances by a shearing scissors cut applied to matrix sheets and strips containing numerous sets of the sign component pieces involved (see FIG. 21 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,177) which produces such beveled edges. The bevelling enables the pieces to be readily closely interfitted in precise vertical and horizontal alignment and to be readily separated. This is not practically possible with square cut edges which could not be practically made with small enough tolerances to be easily interfitted or separated if forced tightly together, as they must to present a continuous appearing sign surface. (See German Patent No. 2,847,590 for such a construction).
Where the sign is a bank interest sign, the sign preferably includes row and column header strip pieces having complete wordforming indicia identifying the nature of the sign information contained in various horizontal information bands and vertical column portions thereof. There can also be provided a main header strip piece to be placed at the top of the sign to identify the institution involved and the type of information contained on the sign. These header strip pieces contain information that are rarely changed.
Another type of sign component piece utilized in the bank sign is a relatively narrow piece, containing a numeric digit, decimal point, percent sign, or the like, that is changed or re-positioned frequently. The decimal point piece is the narrowest piece, and the numeric and percent sign pieces are wider and preferably of identical size. Many such pieces are supplied each user for frequent change of interest rate information in the various information bands of the signs. These sign component pieces and associated row header strip pieces preferably extend the identical full height of a standard sized information band of the sign.
There are also provided narrow blank space sign component pieces of at least two different widths to give a choice of indicia separation distances. Blank spacer strips extending a substantial proportion and preferably the full length of an information band are distributed throughout the sign and separate successive information bands of the sign to provide parallel top and bottom edges along which the indicia-containing component pieces are aligned to assure good horizontal alignment of the sign information throughout the sign.
Another type of changeable bank sign component piece preferably provided are relatively narrow and short sign component pieces containing month and day indicia to identify the term of the particular interest rate involved. Such pieces may, for example, be half the height of an information band of the sign and be positioned one above the other so as together occupy the height of a single information band of the sign.
The beveled edges for the several types of component pieces and the distribution of long blank spacer strips achieve near perfect vertical and horizontal alignment of the individual sign component pieces throughout the sign, even though the pieces are not made to a precise size. They are preferably made, however, to tolerances of .+-.0.005 inch. It is important to achieving this alignment that all of the sign component pieces have matching undercut and overcut adjacent margins and that the undercut and overcut margins are readily identifiable when mounting them on the sign component-receiving surface. Otherwise, the achievement attained by the beveled edges, the near perfect vertical and horizontal alignment, will be frustrated and the edges of the pieces will readily be recognizable. Ascertaining the proper alignment is simple with sign component pieces carrying characters such as "2", "3" and "7" but is difficult for pieces carrying characters such as "0", "6", "9" and the blank pieces.